Learning from great Web sites

If you are like many print publications moving online, you may not have invested as much as some others. And I am sure you are rethinking your Web and overall publishing strategy as we speak.

Just look at the changes going on at tech publishing companies such as CMP Technology and IDG. Those restructurings and the moving of print and online products to online only (e.g., InfoWorld) foreshadow what we will all be seeing in our respective markets.

That's why we're presenting a special report on "Great Media Web Sites"—from an overall design, content, user and innovation approach—for the first time in this issue (see page 8). As many print products become online products, we need to see what others are doing.

It is our hope that these selections will give you an eye-opening handful to visit and see why we think their publishers have invested wisely in them.

I will let the story speak for itself, but I think it's time for all of us to look hard at how much, or how little, we have spent on our Web sites, staffing and exclusive content. Marketers and readers want much more than a basic reformatting of print content and, over the next year or two, you will see dramatic changes in what and how content is delivered online.

As always, our business is exciting and moving quickly. Your dollars will need to move quickly, too, just as marketers' dollars are moving.